The Hero

Mark Russell, captain of a ship sailing from the South Seas to San Francisco, is an innocent victim of a pearl-smuggling scheme by Harry Gibson, and when the pearls are discovered by customs inspectors, Russell takes the blame because of his love for Gibson's sister Eve and to shield her of being disgraced.

John Warriner, facing financial ruin, accepts the proposal of a bootlegger, Benedict, to underwrite the business of illegal wine-selling. His daughter, Angela, takes up with the jazz set and is caught in a raid, at a cafe owned by Benedict. Her former sweetheart, Carl Graham, comes to the rescue and saves her from notoriety, while the family struggles back to its former respectability following Warriner's prison term.

Henry Wilson, a wealthy grocer who started with a pushcart and worked his way up to 40 trucks, although married becomes interested in divorcee Mona Vincent, who is trying to win Frank Clayton, a wealthy scion with whom Wilson's daughter Mary is in love. Mona promises Mary to give up Wilson if Mary will give her Clayton.

When Charles Hale is visiting his mistress, Sybil Russell, he is shot in the arm by Sybil's estranged and outraged husband. Hale's daughter, Marjorie, is so shocked to discover in this abrupt fashion her father's philandering that she leaves her wealthy home and goes to the slums to do settlement work. Marjorie, who is engaged to the district attorney, is there placed in a compromising position by her father's assailant, who intends to revenge himself upon the entire Hale family.

Gloria Vane (Claire Windsor), a shrewish, vain young debutante turned fashion model drags her dying lover, Victor Redding (Reed Howes), ten miles to the nearest settlement in the Canadian wilderness, saves his life and is transformed. How they got from New York City to the Canadian wilds is another story.

Jo Morey, who lives in the St. Lawrence River Valley, inherits her father's barren farm and devotes her entire energies to cultivating it and caring for her invalid sister. Henry Langley meets Jo and proposes marriage to her. She asks him to wait until she is free, but Langley refuses and marries Mary Malden. Eight years later Jo has paid off the mortgage to Captain Longville, and one night she finds a baby in her house; it is Langley's, and a note requests that its parentage be kept secret.

Katherine Brinkley, a rich young woman who delights in challenging conventions, elopes with a married young musician, Nicolai Brouevitch, but when he deserts her she is cast aside by society. Wandering off to Italy, she meets Franklin Shelby, a young American also married, with whom she falls in love.

Richard Lane isolates himself in the African interior for 5 years after his sweetheart, Natalie, marries Norman Travers. Travers, who tires of family life and neglects his wife and son, drifts into an affair with Nita Howard, a cabaret dancer. When Travers' ship is reported lost inward from Europe, Lane hears the news and determines to return and win Natalie; soon Lane develops a fondness for Natalie and her child, Bobby, and she consents to marry him. Travers, however, is rescued from a desert island and refuses to grant Natalie a divorce. Lane finds Travers murdered; and thinking that Natalie is guilty, he surrenders himself to the police. She denies his guilt, but the chief of detectives discovers that Nita Howard is the murderess. Lane is happily united with Natalie.

A framework story serves as context for a retelling of the Exodus story and, most importantly, a recycling of footage from the silent version of The Ten Commandments.

George Otis, a dishonest promoter who uses his wife to forward his schemes, finds himself in danger of arrest for embezzlement and seeks to cover himself by borrowing from John Howard, his wife's former suitor.

While in Spain Alan Randolph falls for famed singer Rosita Mendez, but when he goes back to Louisiana, he returns to his fiancée Violet Beaton. On an American tour Rosita discovers Alan has married Violet. Consumed with jealousy she threatens to kill him with a revolver and in the scuffle is wounded. Full of vengeance Rosita has him jailed for five years. Suddenly contrite she then outlines a plan of escape to Alan, but he refuses until destiny takes a hand.

Funloving Pearl White, working in a garment sweatshop, gets her big chance when she "opens" for a delayed Shakespeare play...with a comic vaudeville performance. Her brief stage career leads her into those "horrible" moving pictures, where she comes to love the chaotic world of silent movies, becoming queen of the serials. But the consequences of movie stardom may be more than her leading man can take

John Nelson, a well-to-do businessman, is escorting a woman he knows as Ethel Barry to the door of her apartment suite when a man steps out of the shadows and angrily demands to know where she has been. The embarrassed Nelson excuses himself and goes to his rooms in the same hotel. The woman rushes into his apartment followed by the man who met her in the hall. The man threatens her with violence and Nelson comes to her defense. In the ensuing fight, the man is knocked out of the window and falls to his death to the pavement many stories down. He is charged with the killing and his only witness that can prove self-defense for him has disappeared, and can not be found.

A tale of a socially inept schoolmaster who must confront his own principles.

World War II drama where the action centers around a single maneuver by a squad of GIs in retaliation against the force of the German Siegfried line. Reese joins a group of weary GIs unexpectedly ordered back into the line when on their way to a rest area. While most of the men withdraw from their positions facing a German pillbox at the far side of a mine-field, half a dozen men are left to protect a wide front. By various ruses, they manage to convince the Germans that a large force is still holding the position. Then Reese leads two of the men in an unauthorized and unsuccessful attack on the pillbox, in which the other two are killed; and when the main platoon returns, he is threatened with court-martial. Rather that face the disgrace, and in an attempt to show he was right, he makes a one-man attack on the pillbox.

During WW1, the destinies of British officers Michael Andrews and John Stevenson seem intertwined on the battle front as much as on a more personal level.